


Germany vs. Germany 1-0

by drcalvin



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Berlin Wall, Cold War, Incest, M/M, Minor Violence, Shooting, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-24
Updated: 2010-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-06 15:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drcalvin/pseuds/drcalvin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1974. Gilbert would like to visit West for a game of football, but there's this big damn wall in the way. What's a nation to do?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Germany vs. Germany 1-0

**Author's Note:**

> There are only hints of Germancest in this one.

How much was a nation supposed to take, before he snapped? The question had been on Gilbert's mind from time to time, increasingly so after his brother lost That Damned War and Ivan began to poke his long nose into all of Gilbert's business.

Gilbert sucked angrily at his last cigarette and glared at the Wall. Tempting, tempting, but what a bad idea...  
On the pro side, and it was a big pro side, were the facts that he was out of both cigarettes and D-marks. Gilbert could also, painfully well, recall the last time he had eaten meat. Real meat, that is, he didn't mean the tiny little portions he was allotted, but lots and lots of steaks and pork chops and all kinds of other (named) parts of (domestic) animals, until he couldn't squeeze another bite down without exploding.  
Sure, as the nation, he could probably have received more food than the normal ration. But that would have demanded him to kiss Ivan's ass and become a visibly strong supporter for the communist party, now wouldn't it? And if he were to lose his appetite from swallowing that much crap, well then, there really was no use in eating at all.

On the other hand, if he tried to cross the wall without an exit visa, he was liable to be shot. A true conundrum.

"Hey, you there! What are you staring at?"   
One of the border guards waved at him to move. Gilbert grunted and flicked the cigarette butt his way, before backing off until he was no longer in sight from the towers.   
He dug around in his pockets for one last squashed cigarette, but found only a dirty, folded paper. Ah, the source of his recent dilemma. A smuggled in letter which had reached him two days earlier. It was the first letter from West to find its way over here since, oh, what could it be? Right, 1953! When he got a panicked note asking him not to do anything stupid, but to try and calm everyone down instead. There hadn't been time to inspire much calmness (not, Gilbert had to admit, that calm was his strong point) before the Soviet tanks rolled in... after that, West stopped writing completely.

And now... now he had, once more. Gilbert opened the letter again, carefully smoothing out the creases. The letters were of the old-fashioned German type and, heh, West still had atrocious handwriting. He hardly even needed to put things in code. Not that this matter was a very secret missive anyway, it wasn't treason to be invited by your brother to watch a match, right? Right...?

"Fuck them all," he muttered and began crumpling the paper up, before catching himself and carefully folded it instead. No, it wasn't treason.

Not unless you were the German Democratic Republic and your brother was the Federal Republic of Germany. And one of you (guess who!) was stuck with a lunatic Soviet watching everything you did with that eerie fucking smile on his face, just waiting for any moment when you messed up so he could make the puppets among your bosses put another hundred or so of your people in jail. Then it wasn't treason to ask for an exit visa, it was pure bloody madness.

On the third hand, football. And nobody had ever accused Gilbert of being sane, now had they?

Someone had to support the guys so they could kick West's ass, anyway. It was practically patriotism.

"Sweet!"   
Finally, Gilbert discovered a broken cigarette in the left cuff of his coat (Right, he'd put an emergency smoke there couple of years ago. Huh. When did he last wash this thing anyway?) and happily puffed away. He had a plot to hatch, a wall to climb and a football game to attend. And if he was _really_ sneaky, Ivan wouldn't even know he had been missing!

* * *

Three nights later, the moon was just a sliver hidden behind light clouds. It was a warm June evening, but the odds against success made cold sweat run down Gilbert's back. No... not Gilbert. Tonight, he would be all Prussia again. Dangerous, crazy and feared all over Europe. No more of being Ivan's muzzled lapdog, who could only snarl and never bite. He was sick to his bones of playing the mangy mutt of the east, who had to wall in his own people to keep them home, who kept lagging after West no matter how much they worked, worked, worked themselves to the bone. It never did them any good, so why should his people even bother? Why not just slack off, close eyes and heart and brain, until you were just another good little drone among the others.

Prussia crawled carefully over the roof, until he was at the very edge and could look down at the empty stripe of death surrounding the wall, feeling a strange sense of vertigo about what he was about to do. Attack and overcome; he knew how to do that, it was what he had been born for!   
Only... This time, he had no armies behind him, no master to order him forward. Unless all the hearts in his land that were calling out for something else and all the blood already staining that fucking wall, had become his master for one night. Maybe that was it? For tonight only, because he knew that they were still weaker than the Soviet. If he were to stand against Ivan now, the streets would flow red with the blood of his children. While Prussia would be happy to stand with them, fight with them into hopelessness and beyond, it was not his decision to make.

"But they too deserve to be remembered," Prussia whispered in the mild summer night, feeling the names echo in his mind. Litfin, first to be shot. Schumann, the guard who got away, and oh, how Prussia had laughed inside when he heard about that one. Fechter, who died before the eyes of the world. So many more. His people who had tired of waiting, had tried to run in the most dangerous way. Some of them were known only to the guards who had fired the bullet and the official who had hushed it down... And to him. For Prussia remembered every face and name, had felt every shot land and he held them silently in his mind.

And after tonight...?   
"On the news: Gilbert Beilschmidt's daring escape! Hmpf. Bet they'll never ever let that one be known, cowardly wankers."

His people were so crafty about running away, he had to admire them for that even as they left him weaker and emptier with each successful attempt. They'd built tunnels, they flew balloons and some had even crazier ideas. He loved the one with the rebuilt sports car - now that was running off in style! Most of the successful ones, though, had taken a lot of planning and often involved helpers on either side of the wall.   
To risk helping Gilbert himself escape, though... To perhaps be caught with what could, technically, be seen as high treason? No, there was no way in hell that he'd let Ivan get his hand on anyone for that particular crime.

Besides, nations were practically immortal. Kinda. Of course, since Prussia wasn't Prussia any longer and his stubborn little brother still refused to properly acknowledge him under his new name and this here country that he was standing on wasn't, how to put it, all that Prussian? Well, let it just be said that sometimes when Gilbert had a particularly bad night, especially if he could feel the Stasi out working, like murderous little ants... When everyone who didn't curse his existence dreamt of licking Ivan's boots and getting a little handout wrapped in a pretty red flag...   
Now and then, Gilbert wondered exactly how much of a nation he still was.

Except of course tonight he had already decided that he was all Prussian, and that meant he would be _amazing_. He had even brought out his old coat as a lucky charm.   
Hah, that would show West! Always complained that he kept useless junk around, now he'd see. Because, inside his coat - which still had a bit of blood on it from where one of Napoleon's men had died on Prussia, this was probably a good omen - he had sewn fast pieces of his even older chain mail. And that had been some really good stuff, back in the days, he was almost certain it would slow bullets down.

Almost certain.

Prussia bit his lip and drew a deep, fortifying breath. He'd already been on this bloody roof for two hours - recognisance was important - but if he was going to do anything, he'd better start moving before it brightened.

From the sounds below, it was time for a guard change and Prussia forced himself to relax. If there were twice as many guards around, he'd be quite stupid to move right now, wouldn't he?   
The little voice in Prussia's head which knew quite a bit about tactics (and sounded unusually much like Old Fritz tonight) reminded him that when the guards were fresh and he had been lying here for hours, his chances wouldn't exactly improve. It could even be argued, that right now, when they were talking to each other, was when the guards were most relaxed and inattentive. Of course, if Prussia was afraid, he could almost come back tomorrow night? Or next week - only be then the game would be over, so he might as well stay at home. Have some more vodka, forget about visiting West.

"Ahhh...." Prussia squeezed his eyes shut and, very softly because he wasn't quite suicidal thank you, began to beat his fist against the roof. Would he? Would he not? It was- it wasn't running away, it wasn't _abandoning_ his country! He would always remain true to himself and his people! But if his bosses were nothing but Ivan's toys and even his own citizens preferred to run and crawl out of this shithole, how could anyone talk about deserting? It was practically his duty to show them what happened if you pushed the East German's too far, yeah...  
It was also absolutely not because he couldn't help trembling (from excitement!) because being shot by East German guards, when he was probably only halfway East Germany might do more than hurt like a bitch.

The letter! With suddenly frantic movements, he dug out the letter from West. Such a short little message. Come join me for the match, if they let you. _If they let you._   
Prussia saw his shaking hands stilling, felt a familiar fire rage in his mind. Nobody, and nobody at all, was to 'let' him do anything; high time to remind Ivan of that fact. Now if only his body didn't feel so leaden with dread, almost frozen with old regrets.

"I'm a Prussian, do you know my colours?" he growled tunelessly, "humdidum, 'm a Prussian, want a Prussian remain... Aw, FUCK THIS!"

With a scream halfway between rage and terror, Prussia pushed off the roof and leapt towards the death strip. The guards looked up at the flailing maniac falling towards them and immediately hefted their weapons, one of them yelling at him to put his hands in the air and stop at once.

Prussia landed hard, but he was running before his brain had time to feel the painful jolt. There rose the wall before him, forbidding concrete and barbed wire to keep him down. And now, finally, the anger overtook the fear and he was practically flying towards the wall, a grapnel and rope swinging in his hand - the heart may falter a little, but his body knew what to do when faced with a big, ugly wall which he wasn't allowed to crush. Climb it, cross it, beat that sucker down!

Then the bullets began to fly and, somehow, Prussia found just a little more energy inside for a last burst of speed. Let the grapnel fly, there, and-

"HALT!"

To be shot really, really fucking hurt. Prussia had, to his the displeasure, already experienced many kinds of bullets, from those spit out by old slow muskets (shoulder), to machine guns (thigh and calf) and pistols (shoulder again and right ear). Fuck, he'd had even ended up on the wrong end of a Red Army tank muzzle once. With all that in mind and discounting the tank which had just been ridiculously horrible, this was possibly his most painful being shot experience so far.

A line of fire worked itself up his entire right side and the bullets were still pinging around him like popcorn from hell. But with some combination of adrenaline and pure thick-headed stubbornness, Prussia hooked the grapnel up properly against the wall and practically ran up the concrete, ignoring the wetness on his left side and the angry shouts from the border guards.   
Of course, after that they hit him with yet another fucking round all over his back and neck, his throat began spraying blood like some lousy horror flick. Prussia took a moment, when he was on the very top of the wall and had to tear apart some barbed wire anyway, to inform the guards of his displeasure. Sure, he was starting to feel a bit dizzy but he still had breath enough to turn around and curse the assholes! Yeah, they'd better watch themselves, because he knew where they lived and they would fucking _pay for this_, the ungrateful, unpatriotic sods.

For some reason, the guards stopped shooting and began screaming instead, before he had even finished threatening them.

"That'll show them," Prussia slurred, fell off the wall (on the West side, thank god, he'd never live the humiliation down otherwise) and crawled a few agonizing meters in what he hoped was the right direction. Some woman began screaming shrilly somewhere and soon enough he could hear American voices coming nearer and then, finally, he smiled and let the darkness take him.

* * *

The sweet, heady smell of newly baked chocolate cake made Gilbert's mouth water almost before he is properly awake. Underlying that, there was the lovely fresh smell of- oh god, was that fresh doughnuts?

"Mffhn... cake?"

"Brother! Are you alright?"

"West?! What the hell are you doing here?"

Indeed, it was his brother. Sitting next to the bed, wearing a black tank-top virtually indistinguishable from the one he had worn last Gilbert saw him. Although, in contrast to that time, West was no longer shackled in a cell, nor was his face fatigued and worn. Now, he looked healthy and hale, although the worried frown was still present beneath his reading glasses.

"I should be asking you that," West rumbled. "What where you thinking, pulling a stunt like that?"  
He clutched Gilbert's hand almost painfully hard and the frown deepened when this only made Gilbert grin widen. God, West... He'd thought he'd never see the little brat again!

"I smell cake," the older nation announced. It was important to keep your priorities straight, after all.

"Wha- yes. I had to do something, waiting for you to wake up," West muttered, a slight blush spreading over his features. "I didn't even know if you were going to wake up... Do you want a bite?"

"_Do_ I?"

When West left for the kitchen to bring some plates and dessert forks, Gilbert realized that not only was he in West Germany, he seemed to be in his brother's house. Bedroom, in fact. These impossibly drab curtains? The perfectly polished floor, marred only by a hideous carpet? Those looming stack of (boring) papers and (even more boring) books about - Gilbert squinted - New Economic Measures for Increased Productivity and Their Application on the Automobile Industry? Impossible that there was one more person in the world with such a horrid taste in recreational reading.

Gilbert was happy enough, however, to admit that his brother was a damn fine baker when he put his mind to it. Especially if, like now, he appeared with a tray laden with extravagant cakes and a steaming pot of coffee.

"If I knew this reception was waiting, I'd have jumped the wall years ago!" Gilbert gushed and reached for the cake tray. "Is that a banana cake I see? It is, isn't it! Gimme!"

"Wait, brother!" West tried to keep him away from the cakes, which proved to be an almost critical mistake when he almost dropped the entire overloaded tray on the bed. Gilbert hurried to save one of the cakes, ignoring West's angry mutters when he grabbed the entire thing with his bare hands. "I haven't even cut your part yet!"

"Absolutely no point in that," Gilbert said, before cramming half the banana cake into his mouth. Bliss. Perfection. Bananas!   
"Mmhr ghmd choom!"

"Brother, _please_, can't you at least pretend that you are a civilized being?"

A question like that hardly deserved an answer, especially not when he had a banana cake all for himself. And ohohoho, if that wasn't his brother's famous Schwarzwald cake he spotted, then his name wasn't Prussia.   
...hang on a minute. No, nevermind, that was definitely Scwarzwald cake so all was well.

"You should be more careful, we don't want your wounds to open again," West nagged. He was pouring coffee for Gilbert though, so he could be forgiven.   
"When they brought you in, I thought you would bleed to death in front of my eyes..."

Bleed? Wounds? Right, he had a bunch of those. Although, when Gilbert carefully poked himself in the throat, he discovered that he was hurting a lot less than he had expected.

"Oh my god! West!"

"Yes?" West snapped to attention immediately. "Is there a problem, brother? Do you hurt anywhere?"

"What day is it? Don't tell me I missed the game!"

It would have been nice to say that the stern mien left West's face, or that his icy blue eyes softened. Unfortunately, he only frowned and pinched the bridge of his nose in a familiar movement of exasperation.   
"That is all you are worried about?"

"Hey, I came here for the football game, didn't I?"

"Oh." Slowly, West put away the cake tray and absentmindedly picked up a napkin to wipe Gilbert's mouth. Okay, _weird_. Had his little brother gone and picked up a few kids of his own, or what?  
"I though..." Though Gilbert was absolutely certain that he was clean from cake crumbs now, West didn't stop wiping his mouth. For some reason, he found himself reluctant to stop the younger nation's distracted movements. It had, after all, been a very long time since anyone had touched him with any kind of gentleness.

"I thought, perhaps, you wanted to stay here?" West's voice was uncharacteristically soft as his hand stilled against Gilbert's cheek.

Ahh... Gilbert allowed himself to entertain the idea for a few moments, resting his against West's hand. To escape from Ivan once and for all, to be free to go visit whomever he wanted and work only for himself? Not too shoddy.  
"I'm East Germany nowadays," he finally said. "It's not. I can't just abandon my responsibility. My people..." Their eyes met and Gilbert saw a reluctant understanding in his brother. "My self."

"The game is tonight," West mumbled. "You've been asleep for two days. But how- are you sure it's safe to return?"

With a wild cackle, Gilbert threw his head back. "What are they going to do? Hah, shoot me? Ahahaha!"

He hadn't expected West to sit on his bedside, waiting for him to wake. He hadn't expected the cakes or the unusual amount of, well, caring. Gilbert hadn't been one for coddling kids, no, he had raised little Ludwig to be a self-sufficient young nation. West had taken to those lessons like a Bavarian to beer and this behaviour was, to say the least, highly unusual. If there hadn't been this weird lump in his throat, Gilbert would have protested that his brother had become soft and decadent, perhaps even tried to give him a smack to remind him of how a manly nation should act.

"Maybe they'll try to replace you with a new nation," West said, still not moving his hand. "Someone more obedient."

"Like that'll ever happen," Gilbert huffed, although his insides twisted at the thought. That was actually one outcome he had never predicted. And wouldn't it be something right up Ivan's alley?   
"I'll go back as soon as we are done with the cup, yeah? " he said, opting for ignoring all the potential problems that could complicate that endeavour.   
"They can't admit they lost their own nation, it'll just be swept under the carpet with all the other filthy secrets! Now..." he buried the last rebellious, fearful thoughts deep inside beneath a layer of bravado. This method had worked perfectly fine for him the last hundred years and he saw no reason to stop using it now, only because Ivan was a seriously creepy fucker.   
"Now I want more cake. Gimme that, the chocolate one. And for dinner tonight, I want steak, you hear me? Huge steaks. Nuh-uh," he put a silencing finger against West's lips, "we're concentrating on the food here, okay? And then football and then, maybe, we can talk politics afterwards."

"Would you like some coffee as well?" West said, sensibly giving up in the face of Gilbert's dedicated focus on the cakes. It was his fault, anyway, since he had made the distracting sweets.

"Sure." Gilbert took the cup and gulped down the wonderful, strong coffee (with no milk and two sugar cubes, godfuckingdammit, West remembered, that shouldn't be enough to almost make him tear up) so quickly he almost burned his tongue off.   
Then chocolate cake followed by jelly donuts - man, could West bake. He was just reaching for the pineapple crumb cake that he figured had been made especially for him, when West decided that he'd had enough of watching a smear of chocolate cream on Gilbert's nose. Somehow, between the other trying to clean him off and Gilbert completely focused on the pineapple cake (pineapples! Ahhh!) their heads clonked together rather painfully.   
West dropped his napkin and Gilbert turned to yell at him but then his little brother bent forward and licked the bloody chocolate of and suddenly, Gilbert felt himself go all funny inside for completely new reasons.

"Uhm... Uh?" he tried, knowing he was probably looking a right mess. Bandaged, full of cake crumbs everywhere and probably cross-eyed too, since he was trying to stare down a West who was somehow very close and yet still a little bit too far away. Which was just weird, considering how they hadn't even seen each other for years and Gilbert had, all in all, managed fine on his own.

"I'm sorry," West whispered, growing increasingly red in the face, but, Gilbert noted with interest, still not moving away. "It's just." He swallowed and crept closer, his breath warm and smelling of coffee against Gilbert's face. "I don't think I want you to go back over the wall..."

"Have to," Gilbert said and closed his eyes. His little brother had certainly grown up during these years, hadn't he?   
"But," he continued before West's disappointed little noise was followed by disappointing action, such as him moving away, "we can to some things to remember, before I leave..."

"Mm." West's lips on his were too soft to be true. When he cradled Gilbert's head in his hands to lick the crumbs and chocolate smears away, the older nation knew he must be dreaming. Perhaps he had fallen down on the wrong side of the wall after all? Or he had only imagined having the strength to move away from it, before he bled to death? Or West really had lost his mind and was actually, honest to god, kissing him far too skilfully for a nation who had been a blushing virgin only some thirty years ago.

"Just as long as we don't miss the match," Gilbert muttered when he was released, "'cuz my guys are gonna kick your ass!" Then he dove right back in, returning the kiss with full force. This was, after all, no more insane than the plan that had brought him here. And it felt so much better.

"Of course not, brother," West promised, looking down at him with a too sappy smile on his face, now also speckled with a few transferred crumbs. "We have plenty of time."

"Liar," Gilbert whispered. West stiffened against him, but he drew the other man closer, pulling free the severely slicked-back hair and kept kissing him. "My liar."

They didn't have any time at all. All these little touches and kisses were stolen, just like the sweet taste of tropical fruit and unlimited amounts of rich chocolate. But one day, perhaps soon, perhaps not...   
One day, Gilbert knew that they would have all the time in the world, when there would be no East or West. No more Ivan or Alfred hanging over their shoulders and interfering with their business. If he would have to wait a hundred years, he would endure until that day. For now, they would just steal these moments for themselves and no walls in the world could stop them.

**Author's Note:**

> Footnotes for your pleasure:  
> Thanks to blacknoise for help with Germany's book title!
> 
> West Germany lost against East Germany in the football World Cup in 1947. Of course, then they won the entire cup...
> 
> Historical-ish notes:  
> D-Mark: The West German mark and the dollar were stronger currencies than east bloc money. Thus, popular on the black market.
> 
> Wiki-link: Victims of the Berlin wall (in German)
> 
> Gilbert hums one of the Prussian national anthems on the roof, usually called Preussenlied. I read about that in another kink-meme fill and loved it so much that I just had to use it somewhere.
> 
> Cakes made by Ludwig are, among others
> 
> [Berliner](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_\(pastry\))
> 
> [ Streuselkuchen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streuselkuchen) (Not traditionally done with pineapple)
> 
> Something similar to [Sachertorte](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachertorte)


End file.
